Anonymous: Inside the war on Scientology

A mysterious online collective known only as ‘Anonymous’ has declared war on the Church of Scientology. Nicky Woolf tracks them down to find out why, and how

Wednesday 20 February 2008

A mysterious online collective known only as ‘Anonymous’ has declared war on the Church of Scientology. Nicky Woolf tracks them down to find out why, and how.

On January 14 of this year, the Church of Scientology – allegedly – applied pressure to the video hosting website YouTube.com to remove the video of a speech by high-profile Scientologist Tom Cruise. According to The Economist: “The star appears to discuss his beliefs with a degree of incoherence and exaggeration that might lead some to question Scientology’s effects on its adherents’ sanity.”

The Church of Scientology said that the tape was “the stolen video of an internal church event,” and yelled copyright. YouTube quickly – some have said suspiciously quickly – removed the video.

On January 21, a mysterious group calling itself “Anonymous” posted a video to YouTube which constituted a declaration of war. Spoken in an artificial, computer-simulated voice, it begins: “Hello, leaders of Scientology. We are Anonymous. Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation, your suppression of dissent, your litigious nature, all of these things have caught our eye.”

It continues “Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed.”
It ends: “Knowledge is free. We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

At around the same time, The Church of Scientology’s home page was attacked by hackers, quickly succumbed to the onslaught, and went offline. After one week, Anonymous’ YouTube declaration had racked up more than a million hits, and has since more than doubled that. The war had begun.

On February 10, Anonymous stepped its game up a notch and emerged from the internet realm. A massive international protest was held outside every single Scientology church and centre in the world, including the ‘dianetics centre’ on Hull Road in York, 5 minutes walk from the University.
The largest protests, in London and Los Angeles, boasted more than 500 protesters. York’s was a little more modest, at around 20, but nonetheless the speed with which Anonymous has mobilised the grassroots against Scientology, and gone from a niche collective of web-users to a powerful global movement is cause for thought.

The anonymity aspect is not just for show. Nobody on the forums where Anonymous hangs out goes by their real names, and everyone is careful to protect personal details. Speaking to members of the group, the first thing that strikes me is how seriously everyone takes this. There is real fear of retaliation from Scientology. Anonymity is the first line of defence.

If Anonymous is an army, the message-boards at Enturbulation.org are its unofficial headquarters. I log on, and post a message on the York section. Fairly soon, I receive a call on my mobile, number withheld. Half-expecting a computer-modulated voice, I am caught short by a sensible, slightly nervous north-midlands accent.

As a matter of course, he tells me, he will not give me his name. His ‘Anonymous’ name, his online alias, is ‘AnotherYorkAnon’, and he is a final-year student at the University of York. He has been a member of Anonymous for “probably a couple of years now”; a lot longer than most. I ask him why such secrecy is needed; “In the case of people criticising the Church of Scientology, they have what’s called the fair game policy,” he tells me. “I believe they are alleged to have revoked it for over 30 years now, but there are very, very firmly documented cases.”

“The fair game If you are a vocal critic of Scientology,” he continues, “they are allowed within their organisation to harm you in any way they see fit. Sometimes physically, or sometimes they try and do it through court cases and having you arrested.”

I am as familiar as anyone else with the Church of Scientology’s litigious reputation; it’s been well represented in the media. I had not, however, heard of this more sinister aspect to the Church. I ask AnotherYorkAnon how much is known about the darker side of Scientology. “There have been some very high-profile cases of deaths and suicides,” he informs me. “If you get into the cult even without knowing what’s going on then you can be in very real danger. They tend to avoid contact in any way with people outside the cult. There’s generally their aim; to try and isolate the members of their organisation so they don’t have contact with the outside world.”

After our conversation, I did some did some digging online. It seems that Anonymous’ fears are not without base. There are an awful lot of horror-stories associated with both membership of and opposition to the Church of Scientology. Some of them had impressive evidence backing them up; U.S. Coroner’s reports, court transcripts, photographic evidence and several corroborating eyewitness reports.

Perhaps the best-documented case, and that most often cited by Anonymous’ campaigners, is that of the death of a young Scientologist, Lisa McPherson, in apparent captivity at a Scientology facility, in 1998. The Church of Scientology in Clearwater was charged with practicing medicine without a licence and criminal neglect, but these charges were dropped in 2000 on a legal technicality.

Later, I speak to another member of Anonymous. ‘Nick’, in his early twenties, from Leeds, was a new addition to the ranks. “I’ve known about Scientology and their crimes for a long time,” he tells me. “But it’s been there’s never been anything big organised before, especially in the UK. When it became apparent that this was going to be a worldwide thing and that it is going to make a difference, I decided “I’ve got to get in on this, I’ve got to help out.”

‘Nick’ is also very careful about his identity. He, too, is scared of retaliation from the Church. “I don’t know any Anonymous in real life. I think that’s a good thing; we are starting to get reports of people getting fair-gamed because of Sunday’s protest and I certainly wouldn’t want to be targeted,” he says. “They have started to dismantle the lives of some people they have identified. There’s one guy’s lost his job over it; Scientology wrote to his workplace telling them that he’d been inciting hate-riots. There’s another guy who’s now got a van parked outside his house with people coming to and from it, taking pictures of his house.”

The Church of Scientology have attempted to hit back at Anonymous in the media as well as in person. In a statement to Florida newspaper the St. Petersburg Times on February 8, the Church accused Anonymous of “perpetrating religious hate crimes against churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists for no reason other than religious bigotry.”

The statement accuses Anonymous of “harassment, including threats of violence in phone calls,” and compares them to a “terrorist or hate group”. It says that Anonymous has “publicly proclaimed its guiding materials to be the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf.

Anonymous, by its very nature, is a leaderless, anarchistic collective; AnotherYorkAnon describes it succinctly as “a herd of cats.” There is no command structure, formal or informal. This in mind, the Church of Scientology’s accusations are difficult to credit. That Anonymous could ‘publicly proclaim’ its guiding materials to be anything at all, let alone Mein Kampf, is cast aside by any members I ask with offended derision.

Anonymous’ answer to Scientology’s accusations is agreed by consensus, rather than issued by authority, and then sent to me. “The Church of Scientology refuses to acknowledge that we are uninterested in physical violence against their members,” it says, and continues: “Anonymous strongly condemns any illegal action against the Church of Scientology or other religious organizations.”

“Not only do we address these concerns in a number of statements, but our actions speak for themselves, as has been made clear during the global wave of demonstrations… The Church of Scientology will find that the only thing their parishioners need protection from is the Church of Scientology itself.”

It is irrefutable that the protests on the tenth were, without exception, executed entirely peacefully. “Everyone considers it amazing how successful it was,” ‘AnotherYorkAnon’ tells me. “There was not a single arrest, police caution or any negative publicity. It all went perfectly to plan.”

I speak to ‘Jambob’, a 15-year-old Anonymous who organised the York protest. “I made sure that the police knew that we were coming,” he said. “I made sure that no-one was going to mess about and do something illegal, generally just saw that things ran smoothly.”

This is what seems to be unique about Anonymous. While the Church of Scientology has branded them “terrorists”, they have in fact been extremely careful to maintain a strict non-violence policy. Their protest instructions say: “Don’t be confrontational towards existing members of the CoS,” and “Stay cool, especially when harassed. You are an ambassador of Anonymous. Although individuals trying to disrupt your demonstration will get on your nerves, you must not lose your temper.”

‘Nick’ describes himself as a part of “sort of the ranks” of the group, as distinct from “the group that set up the denial-of-service attacks”, the hackers who took down the Scientology website.

‘AnotherYorkAnon’ also distances himself from them. “There actually seems quite a divide amongst Anonymous as to whether that was the right thing to do or not,” he tells me.

‘TheQueue’, one of the staff on the Enturbulation.org forums, sums up the quandary for me.

“Anyone could be part of Anonymous, including somebody who overtly disagrees with us. How can we be sure any action attributed to Anonymous isn’t the work of the Church of Scientology or, perhaps more likely, just some kid that wants to get a laugh?”

“As a result Anonymous doesn’t take credit for anything,” he continues. “The very concept of our group means that individual actions are outside of the group and consequences – good or bad – happen only to that individual. The protests this weekend were due to the individuals involved, not some pseudo-identity of Anonymous.”

‘TheQueue’ is keen to downplay the hacker attacks. “There’s no organisation or “leaders” that would coordinate these actions. In addition the original attacks didn’t require much skill – a DDoS attack is the online equivalent of too many phones calling a 1-800 number and overloading its capacity.”
That doesn’t mean that Anonymous doesn’t have that sting in its tail. “there certainly are some technically-minded individuals who are capable of attacking websites like that,” ‘AnotherYorkAnon’ says carefully.

It might not even be needed. ‘Nick’ tells me that the February 10 protests had more than just an external effect on the Church of Scientology. “We’re already getting word from people inside Scientology that it is causing a lot of dissent; which is our aim.”

Intrigued, I ask him what he means, and his voice takes on an excited, almost proud edge. “Well, there’s certain people within Scientology who can’t get out of it for certain reasons, but they do keep contact with critics of Scientology. There’s someone – I can’t say her name – who’s been a long-time critic, and has been posting some letters and emails that she’s been receiving from Scientologists still within the cult. They’re discussing things like what exactly it is that Anonymous were protesting. They’ve been told various things, and they know that they’re not getting the full story. They’re trying to get some information but they’re being blocked by the higher-ups.”

Where does Anonymous go from here? There are already more protests planned for March 15, which are speculated to at least double the participation of the February 10 protest. I ask ‘AnotherYorkAnon’ what he predicts for the future of Anonymous, and he pauses. “It depends on the results of the 15th what happens next, really. It is very difficult to predict what’s going to happen in a month’s time.” ‘Nick’ is more upbeat: “From what we’re hearing, this has dealt a huge blow to Scientology already, but it’s going to take years to get down to the nitty-gritty; the people who really need help, the people whose lives have been completely destroyed by Scientology. There are people so deep within the cult that they cannot get out at all.” He pauses briefly for breath. “They’re the people that we really need to get to.”

62 comments

I’m pretty sure 4chan is considered the “headquarters” of Anonymous, considering that’s where the whole thing started (although it only recently come to light as the Scientology protests are a lot more famous than their attacks against the Ebaums World website, for example).

* Scientologys belief that they are the only ones that can help the world ( make the world “clear” ), thus being intolerant of other religions – something they fight for when its their religion being attacked. (most cults believe that they are the only ones that know the “truth”)

* Scientologys disconnection policy, which requires members to cut all ties to friends and family considered “antagonistic” towards the religion (a basic practice of all cults). No other religion does this.

* Scientologys affirmation that anything written by L Ron Hubbard is the true and definitive word. It can not be altered or disputed (a single messianic figure, another basic practice of all cults). Is he really that much starter than everyone else in the world? Come on… really? Always question authority!

* Scientologys military uniforms and titles. No other religion does this.

* Scientologys attack on psychiatry solely because psychiatry attacked L Ron Hubbard for practicing medicine without a license and having no scientific proof that his form of psychotherapy worked. (once, after stating that Dianetics improved ones memory, a person declared as “clear” couldnt even remember the color of Hubbards tie). L Ron Hubbard turned Dianetics into Scientology in order to continue to make money and avoid criminal charges. Ask yourself, why psycs? Hmmm.. Do you think that maybe its because they are in direct competition for psychotherapy dollars. Did you know that Hubbard himself requested psychiatric assistance from the V.A.?

* Scientologys contribution scheme which requires you to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach the highest level of their “Bridge to Total Freedom”. Making money is one of the sole functions of each “org” – organization – aka “mission” ( KSW – Keep Scientology Working is their motto). Christians dont charge for their “secrets”. Mormons will send you a copy of “The Book of Mormon” for free. Jehovah Witnesses will come to your house and talk to you freely about their religion. Ask yourself.. why charge if the purpose is to clear the world? Wouldnt the world be clear quicker if was free? Wouldnt people gladly give you money for “saving” them?

* Scientologys misleading images of using the cross (a symbol of Christianity), the words “Mission” and “Minister” to promote their psychotherapy as a religion (Scientologists do not believe in Christ. L Ron Hubbard once said “there was no Christ”. He said that religion was created in 600 BC by people “using a piece of R6” implant. L Ron Hubbard also implied that Christ was a pedophile). Scientology is not tolerant of any other religion. It cant be because it goes against everything L Ron Hubbard teaches and he isnt wrong… is he? Ask yourself… why the cross? I know about the 8 points, but why not just 8 lines intersecting each other? Why use something that looks like a Christian cross? It is maybe to mislead people into thinking that Scientologists are in some way Christians?

* Scientologys deceptive marketing strategies used to lure you into the church to take courses intended to help you achieve your “full potential”. These include the “Free Personality Test”, that always points out problems they can help you with if you paid them, and through frontline organizations such as WISE, ABLE, The Way to Happiness and Applied Scholastics which introduces potential members (including school age children) to the teachings of L Ron Hubbard and his made up terminology (which requires a Scientology dictionary to understand). Ask yourself… why “courses”, books and videos and lectures that you have to pay for? Why not just teach the religion for free in churches? Why deceive people?

* The death of a Scientologist Lisa McPherson while in the care of the Church. The Church settled this case out of court. Why?

* The suicide of Noah Lottick who jumped from the roof of a building because he had no more money to give the Church. There have been many others like Noah, including L Ron Hubbards own son, that have taken their own lives because of conflicts the church.

* Criminal activities committed on behalf of the Church and directed by Church officials such as Operation Freakout and Operation Snow White in which L Ron Hubbards wife was sent to prison.

* Conflicting statements about L. Ron Hubbards life, in particular false accounts of Hubbards education (he flunked out of George Washington University and never attended Princeton), credentials (he was never a Civil Engineer nor a Nuclear Scientist), military career (he was never a WWII Hero. In fact, he was decommissioned twice, once for accidentally ordering his ship to fire upon Mexico – It wasnt until he created the Sea Org that he gave himself the title of “Commodore” and made everyone wear naval uniforms that he finally achieved his dream of being a great naval officer) and lastly his great expeditions (2 failed attempts one trying to make a movie and the other searching buried gold). He also abandoned his first wife and children while he went on these “adventures”, cheated on his wife, committed bigamy, tried to kidnap his daughter from his second wife and was himself on medication at the time of his death. If the man lied about himself… and is a “great” Science Fiction writer… ask yourself, can you really trust him to tell you the truth? Why did all his explorations and accomplishments stop when he after founding the Church?

All-in-all, Scientology is based on lies and the ego of one man. It is a scam in global proportions.

Anonymous is a school of fish. No one directs, but it moves as one. It can change and adapt quickly in order to survive and accomplish its goals. It’s smarter than the smartest individuals that form it. It’s self-cleaning, that’s why nobody can do illegal acts in the name of Anonymous: Anonymous as a corps will denounce any criminal activity from infiltrators or individuals who do not comply with the guidelines followed by the vast majority.

Expect the Corporation of Scientology to “burn the Reichstag”. They’ll (their Office of Special Affairs [OSA], to be more precise) harm themselves and blame Anonymous. They’ve already done that in the past, they did it with the “white powder threats”, and they’ll continue doing it. Remember remember, the 27th of February…

Misinformation. Anonymous treats the internet as Communist China once treated its population, stating fallacies as if they were facts, publishing stolen videos as if they were important, attempting to blanket illegal acts under a broad label. Courts of law have carefully examined these fallacies but professional opinion and practical application are beyond Nanonymous thinking.

For Anyone who cares, Terryeo is a scientologist, and is directed by the Office of Special Affairs to post comments online against Anonymous and against anyone who talks out about the church. He is doing this to gain credits for their “Auditing” processes, so that he doesn’t have to pay as much.

You can google his name to find the comments he has made on COUNTLESS other sites. He also got banned from Wikipedia for continuously altering the scientology page with his account and a sockpuppet account.

Other scientology disinformationists are: Terryeo, Bgodley, James Lightfield, Curiouser, Not-Anon (But I have seen others post under this name) and others, though those are just the ones we have seen many, many, times.

Scientologists will be easy to spot because they will either extoll the virtues of scientology, not addressing any of the information pertinent to the reasons we are protesting, or they will attack anyone criticizing them with Ad Hominem attacks, ignoring our claims or just saying “Those are false” without giving any information or sources even claiming that they are false.

Also, Scientologist disinformationists often just copy-paste the same few long rants over and over, so if you are keeping up on these scientology updates on various news sites, you will probably see their rants more than once.

“Anonymous treats the internet as Communist China once treated its population”
On the contrary, it’s the cult of scientology who treats its members as communist China treated its people. Anonymous is open, we encourage people to research for themselves and educate themselves. The enturbulation forum is open to anyone who wants to become a member, or anyone who wants to read our posts. On the other hand, the cult of scientology is known for among other things, its disconnect policy, its members isolated from the ‘evil’ outside world.
We have no hidden agenda. We’re free and open.

The information that has been “leaked” into the public over the past few decades about the church’s “darkside”if you will, you can be sure is very partial as the church has always been meticulous about keeping its “dirt” under wraps OR doing an adequate job of harassing individuals so badly, that the public at large has an inbred fear of dealing with the “church” at all.

Maybe it will be a global “mob” of sorts that will be more adequate in shaking the foundations of the church into what we HOPE will be, reforming it’s approach to the rest of the inhabitants in general, and particularly those who have paid a considerable amount of money to partake in their “spiritual guidance” and come up with something quite different than what they were promised. Which is another story.

Oh Look! Terryeo’s here trying to get out from under the black hole of downstat he’s in. Are you in for some gangbang auditing now that the truth is coming out and you and your OSA compadres can’t spam comment pages fast enough to keep the truth buried?

Maybe it’s time for you and James to get out from under that dwarf David Miscavige while he’s busy squirreling the tech to notice. My Dear Xenu, things are going to get interesting around here. Once the IRS takes a look at your books, not even a volcano of that psych pill popping L. Ron Hubbard’s books are going to save you.

Terryeo, what professional (non-Scientology affilliated) opinions are you referencing? Please give examples. And please Terryeo, quit with the Communism and Marxism references, this is becoming clichè.
This disimformation, I believe, is on part of the Church of Scientology. The idea is to disseminate this faulty information and to provide the public with the truth. Google Terryeo.

“Speaking to members of the group, the first thing that strikes me is how seriously everyone takes this. There is real fear of retaliation from Scientology. Anonymity is the first line of defence.” — Thats because of the Office of Special Affairs thugs and the Private Investigator goons

“I believe they are alleged to have revoked it for over 30 years now, but there are very, very firmly documented cases.” — No, the Policy Letter that was issued revoked merely the term ‘fair game’ it exlicitly stated that the policy was not being terminated

scientology leaves a trail of bodies everywhere it goes. The latest being Shawn Lonsdale. While its true Shawh took his own life, scientology drove him to it. A flim maker whos only crime was to stand on a public street and do a flim about scientology.
They hounded his every move. Posted fliers full of hate with his picture, address, phone number and even Social S number.

They set up a web site full of lies telling the people of Clearwater to watch their children because he was a molster.

They cost him job after job, they called his landlords.

scientology has rules they live by…..

“In any event, any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind, because by abusing those rights he brings into being arduous and strenuous laws which are oppressive to those who need no such restraints.”

“There are only two answers for the handling of people from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale, neither one of which has anything to do with reasoning with them or listening to their justification of their acts. The first is to raise them on the Tone Scale by un-enturbulating some of their theta by any one of the three valid processes. The other is to dispose of them quietly and without sorrow.”

– L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL, p. 170

So Terryeo, before you attack this group of people who only want to expose the evil your group does why not answer this question?

Isn’t scientology the only so called church to have its leaders convicted and sent to prison for breaking into goverment offices and stealing files and planting bugs?

Didn’t your so called church steal papers from a writer and use them to frame her crimes she never commited?

Google Operation Snow White, and Operation Freakout

Anonymous is commiting no crimes. They are showing your so called churches crimes and it needs to be done. You really never should have shown yourself to them. They will never give up.

If you are going to call yourself a church then you need to start action like one.

I am going to address this comment specifically to you and other critics who search and post on these sites.

I do not work for the Church. I am a self employed Scientologist. Much of the success I enjoy in life I attribute to being a Scientologist so these articles and comments are very personal to me as they strike at something I consider very valuable.

Yes, I have read or seen much of “the evidence” that you use to back up your positions.

Yes, I know all about this idea that you are professing to attack the “higher up” church of which us “lower level Scientologists” know nothing about.

I and most Scientologists are already aware of the things you use to try and inflame antagonism to the Church or individual Scientologists like Tom Cruise.

Prior to the Anonymous protest I used to not be that active as a Scientologist in terms of handling people on my religion. It caught my attention and I don’t really remember how. I never posted a single comment on Scientology on the internet in the many years I have been a Scientologist.

With that said, I think you will find when someone is faced with as much mockery and hatred (holding up signs that say “I hate Sceintologists”) you will find that you galvanize people to do more of what they are doing, not less.

What I have actually seen recently is a greater reach for Scientology from others in the last few weeks wanting to know what the fuss is about. You see, many people do make decisions for themselves. It is only when their attention is attracted to something do they because curious.

You criticize too much too often. You mock and degrade to such an extent, sometimes with such outlandish statements, that many non-Scientologists will look at you with skepticism. Many have already commented as such.

It is your right to speak as you feel but only to the degree it does not infringe on other’s rights. Those rights in America are to right to pursue freedom and happiness. If you defame and publicly ridicule you have quite possibly infringed upon another. There exists a legal system you can utilize to air any grievance or to pursue some level of recourse for a wrong you feel the Church has committed. The only requirement is to actually prove your claim. However, if you shun a system which is built into our social fabric than how highly are we supposed to validate what you say?

If you feel the system is not just or won’t work in your favor than you can endeavor to change that system. However, if you incite hatred as a means or call to overthrows than, to quote LET IT BE from the Beatles, “you won’t make it with anyone, anyhow”.

For all those that truly don’t hate I only ask you to research other non-Scientologists and find out how they expressed dissatisfaction with something. Dr. Martin Luther King protested but he did not inflame hatred and he certainly didn’t surround himself with a court of jesters.

If you find yourself in such a court, beware. Mockery is a low level invalidation technique and it is easily sprung on each other as soon as the main target is not in the room.

For those that truly hate. Well, all I can say is that I don’t hate you no matter what you call me. I only hope one day you will find some answer for yourself as to what is really troubling you.

The more I research this “church” the more amazing it gets, for instance L Ron Hubbard’s successor David Miscavage decided that there were “punctuation errors” in over a dozen of L Ron Hubbards books and that the victims of this cult need to buy all new sets of these books at their expense, spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
This means that either the original books that the “church claims to be the infallible word of their prophet are flawed or else it means that David Miscavage has found a way to print his own money.
Honestly Google up more about this cult, it is entertaining and scary at the same time

Goodness! This has been a real eye-opener for me!
I’m writing an article on Project Chanology for my school newspaper, and one of the editors sent me a link to your article, which is amazingly written. I understand the amount of digging it takes to uncover such a thing: the clash of CoS and Anon is difficult to track down because both are thoroughly blanketed beneath so much secrecy.
Thanks for the insight!

There are millions of people who have just as much success as you, and the difference is that they don’t pay thousands of dollars to the church. And, you’ll have to forgive me on this one, but you saying that the OSA does not know of your posting, or that you are not posting for the OSA, is bullshit. The CoS hands out a package of software and readings to all church members, and along with the software they give you, they also add a Net Nanny, which prohibits you from reading sites declared as SP or entheta by the OSA. You have posted on many sites that would have been declared as SP by the OSA. So, either the OSA can’t keep their shit together, or you are definitely working for them.

I’m kind of split both ways, so I guess I’ll just say that it’s a little of column A and a lot of Column B.

Oh, and your claims that our criticisms are nothing more than mocking are pretty egotistical of you. We have facts supporting us, while you have conjecture at best. We have HUNDREDS of documented cases of abuses of the members of the church, several COUNTRIES have banned scientology, ALL calling it harmful and in it for money.

You can bawwwwwwwwww about “religious bigotry” all you want, but the fact of the matter is that all of the countries who have banned you have said nothing of your religious practices, and many things about how you are harmful to its members and those who aren’t members, and how you are obviously a for-profit organization.

As for your comment that we are not letting others think for themselves, that too is little more than libel. We speak vehemently about the atrocities committed by this institution with only the same amount of fervor which you put into spinning PR stories and attacking critics.

Oh, and by the way, something that should REALLY fry you. I’m sure you and your OSA buddies are working overtime to scramble PR, spread disinformation, roast hot dogs, torture SPs, whatever it is you guys do, I’m sure you’re quite busy.

All of us, save perhaps the supporting long-time critics like Wise Beard Man or Magoo, are doing this IN OUR SPARE TIME.

We are leading perfectly normal lives. Go to work (or school for some of us), come home, have a bite to eat, relax, then come online and fight against your web of lies for a few hours.

The fact that you are having so much trouble against so few people doing so little is hilarious to me.

um..this post:
Goodness! This has been a real eye-opener for me!
I’m writing an article on Project Chanology for my school newspaper, and one of the editors sent me a link to your article, which is amazingly written. I understand the amount of digging it takes to uncover such a thing: the clash of CoS and Anon is difficult to track down because both are thoroughly blanketed beneath so much secrecy.
Thanks for the insight”

Terryeo is one of the funniest trolls I’ve ever seen. He really gets around.

More on topic-
The recent protests are not against the core beliefs of Scientology. Protesters are speaking out against the criminal actions of the Church’s administrative architecture and practices.

The Church of Scientology stalks, harasses, and intimidates any critical voice whether it be inside or outside the religion. The Church charges parishioners large amounts of money per service and requires the purchase of commercial literature in order to obtain higher levels of spirituality.

The Church’s malicious Disconnect Policy forces its members to completely separate themselves from family and friends that do not support Scientology.

The Church of Scientology does not allow “splinter sects”. There is no Methodist or Lutheran-esque style of Scientology. The Church aggressively pursues legal action, via copyright claims, against anyone attempting to freely practice the “religion” without paying large amounts of money for it.

Does that fit your idea of what a Church should be? Or is it closer to the actions of a criminal syndicate?

Your belief that I work for the Church is a case in point of how one can get things fixated in their minds.

I do not work for the Church. Maybe this idea upsets you somehow but that is the truth. The fact that I have offered commentary on several sites which obviously you yourself have visited does not mean anything other that what I have stated. I am a concerned Scientologist that finds something very valuable in Scientology and I wish to defend it against some of the accusations being leveled.

I have not been handed any “net nanny” that you speak of nor is the church currently promoting any such software. Most Scientologists frankly do not know much of what critics say nor do they care to find out because they are satisfied in their own personal assesments. I am also satisified in my own personal assesment of several years however I have taken to posting my comments for reasons I stated earlier.

I did not say that the antagonism regarding Scientology is all mockery. There is a fair bit of direct accusation and supposition as well. You may never have enganged in mockery yourself but many of these critics have. I could easily point you to sites and commentary that is full of it. It, at this point, is a pretty well established fact.

In many critics zeal for knocking the church down to size I have warned that there may be too much stuff said too often. Your earlier post has served well for an example. I would now like you to prove that one of your claims is not baseless. More specifically, you stated that Scientology is actually banned in several countries. Would you please list for me those countries you talk about and where you got this information?

You see, if that statement proves to be false and it were published in a newspaper or read on television it would be considered libel and when you libel a religion or adherents to a religion it can be easily deciphered as bigotry.

You also have said along with some other critics that I nor other Scientologists have proved our case against the accusations. You see, how it usually works is that the accuser has to prove his case to support allegations or accusations. The Church of Scientology and Scientologists didn’t come attacking you, you decided to attack them. In your decision to attack by whatever motive, you must prove positive your assertions. If the evidence you state by “hundreds” of examples is trully compelling, (which I personally beg to differ) then there are proper channels you can take this to which is something I whole heartedly suggest. This is the agreed upon recourse in a civilized society.

Finally, I am actually not “fried” about any of this. I do not agree with what you say or do and I will assert some effort in addressing this. However, neither I nor as far as I can tell any church staff feel any tremendous hate or antagonism towards you. One of the reasons the Church doesn’t spread hate regarding critics is borne out of an understanding of concepts regarding the human mind as discussed in Dianetics. You may not take any solice in this fact but that is something best left for your own personal decision.

Dealing with prejudice and accusation is not something new for Scientology nor was it new for any budding religion in history. My personal opinion is that these recent efforts to degrade Scientology shall pass as it has for all other religions. In fact the recent buzz about Scientology has only served to pique interest. My own sister-in-law had never really shown a lot of interest but only in the last two weeks she has requested more information and is watching the Dianetics video.

4chan, and the *chans in general, are perhaps the spiritual home of the hacker element within Anonymous. As membership has grown, focus has moved away from the original methods used. Legal methodology is considered more positive and this is the focus of the enturbulation boards. However big anonymous may become, there will always be a hardcore element of channers and g00ns who continue DDOSsing – dare I say it – for the LULZ!!!

Long Live the Regime!!!! They will bring down this group that call themselves hackers when they only know simple things about hacking that a little 5 year old could do!! The Regime has some REAL hackers (including myself) and we will bring down this stupid group called Anonymous!!

Superb article! Excellent to the point your attracting your very own scientology trolls! Well done! The protests on 10-Feb made the York Scientology centre remove their external signs, I’d call that a result if nothing else. See you all on 15th March folks.

I’m soooo tempted to say: Thanks for the stat hits! But as I said at Wikipedia, I do not edit as part of any organization, am not an employee of an organization, etc. etc. My motivation? Your misunderstanding is my motivation, actually. You peeps are clicking your teeth at something that only grows stronger because you do. IF the thousands of court cases and many attacks not happened at all, Scientology would not be widely known, as it is now. Oh…the Lulz!

Wow, “disinformationist”. What did I do to earn that label. Just so you know, I surely do take offense as to what Anonymous is doing but it is Anonymous’ claims that Anonymous makes in their comments regarding the “virtues” of psychiatry for which I have real concern (and what I post about it is probably what has earned me this label of disinformationist). As I see that many people may actually buy into Anonymous’ rant and I see this spilling over into Anonymous’ promotions and claims regarding psychiatry’s use of psychotropics (To Anonymous’ credit Anonymous has so far refrained from such promotion on this site’s comments other than some authoritative reference to psychology and violence). It may never be determined whether Anonymous is misinforming or disinforming for the psychopharmaceuticals or both (Of course as the structure of Anonymous being what it is, other members may never determine as well). Before you allow psychiatry’s psychotropics to be prescribed to your friends and family under the guise of cures for depression, ADD, ADHD, anxiety, bipolar, etc., inform yourself as to the opionions of others regarding psychiatry and psychotropics by googling “psychiatry psychotropics lobotomies” where you will learn Scientology is far from a lone voice in the protests and books written against psychiatry and psychotropics. The following are excellent links:http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/5372http://psychiatricnews.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/fixated-threat-assessment-centre/

My advice to the students of York: Take care not to get mixed up in the corrupt and sinister secret cult called “anonymous”, don’t get duped by their brain washing propaganda. Instead, go buy or borrow a book about Scientology spiritual philosophy, and find out what it really means to think for your self.

By the way, having studied the subject of Scientology in depth, and applied it with great success in my life, that makes me a Scientologist. So if any unmasked individual wants to have a sensible discussion about Scientology, I’d gladly make myself available.

I had written on a post “my clueless manager [made certain decisions] for bullshit reasons”.

Mind you I didn’t name the manager in the post, nor the company (though the name of the company and my position there were mentioned in other parts of the journal).

It got back to the person who had been my manager at the time of the post, and they phoned me on one of my days off, screaming at me and saying it would be taken further. My next day back, I was let go immediately, for the reason of “being slow at my workload recently”.

A quick phone call to a senior manager who is a friend of mine confirmed that an unsigned email containing the comments (and my full name and other details) was the real reason.

I’ve had lawyers contact me offering support, and numerous people asking me to out the company, but I’d rather deal with it personally, and in better news, I’ve quickly found another job.

Also, Mr B, you can defend the religious aspect however you want, but I was personally approached by people from WITHIN the Melbourne (Australia) Org, told that I was known to them, and then followed (with witnesses).

I had done nothing more than walk past the church after handing out protest fliers in another part of the city. They recognised me because my image had been attached to a website organising one of the February 10th protests.

I have at no point conducted ANY harmful or illegal activity in regards to this situation, nor any vengeful or negative activity to any individual member of the Church of Scientology.

I merely handed out fliers with factual, sourced information and then attended a peaceful protest (with the cooperation of police, who I had contacted to organise the protest itself). I was then victimised by confirmed Church members – one was later named as a private investigator under OSA employ – and lost my job due to being outspoken against the very same kind of behaviour!

I do not defend the actions of those who used DDoS attacks to slow or disrupt the Scientology websites; in fact I openly denounce such acts, and feel that only peaceful protesting and the outflow of sourced information can help to educate about the negative aspects of the organisation in question.

Tell me – can you, as an apparently rational and logical human being, defend the kind of action I have described above from members of your Church, and people under their employ?

I must remind you that this phenomenon is not confined to myself. I would certainly like you to give your opinion on the actions of this particular private investigator, also confirmed (by police, no less) as working on behalf of Scientologists:

I live in Silverlake, California and am under severe attacks by scientologists. The building I live in is now crawling with them. They claim I am a pedophile and engage in numerous techniques of psychological torture and gang-stalking surveillance 24/7! I was once a Hollywood insider with close ties to representatives for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman- and before that an opponent of the now failed Mike Ovitz of Creative Artists Agency (they have and still represent both actors). These nasty cult members have harassed my family and friends for decades. For quite some time they themselves have been watched 24/7 so their activities have been fully documented. It has been a very tough and nearly fatal 18 years- but soon it will end. High level politicians, executives and police officers are distancing themselves from Scientology in Los Angeles and soon my personal story with evidence will be breaking news headlines. Very soon.

Online anonymity ???? I had a young man recently try to snoop my hard drive
it took me 9 hours to find his real name where he lived his home phone number what his cats were called his mams name his dads name his girlfriends name and where she lived i also got his PS3 account name just from his user name in DC++

If you truly want to stay anonymous i suggest you set up several e mail accounts using fake names and details all with different passwords never post anything on Youtube or any social media site using any e mail address that can be linked to you always use a fake name for facebook etc always use a pay as you go mobile phone DO NOT REGISTER IT use that number to verify media accounts send text messages etc the cheaper the better in case it has to be thrown also tape up your webcam unless you use it???????. Familirize yourself with GCHQ and what there capabilities are, this will give you a better idea of how to counter act them.
When accessing your e mails or posting any messages on media sites i suggest you use the TOR BROWSER google it if you don’t know what it is.
To be truly anonymous i suggest you learn how to use back track 5 and cain and abel with a cantenna and crack any routers wap key and use that router to access e mails and post messages.

Scientology has just found a new enemy after reading all these comments on here and reading about and watching how they operate smacks of fascism with an MK ULTRA twist.